Triangulation
by Sorrel
Summary: Futurefic. Clark and Lois like to play, but they're not just playing with Lex. Love and relationships tend to grow in strange ways, especially with these three. AU Futurefic, ClarkLexLois.
1. Partners

**Partners.**

* * *

They were partners. Clark Kent and Lois Lane, crack journalistic team. Superman and Lois Lane, out to stop corruption and crime. Clark and Lois, best friends. It was how it was. 

Everyone knew that they were partners. People remarked on it, said that "those two always do everything together," and they certainly weren't wrong about that.

Clark had joined the Planet straight out of college and had been assigned to Lois straight off the bat. He'd been in a period of post-Lex depression, having just lost his best friend to the business world when LexCorp went global and Lex just didn't have time for him anymore. He hadn't had the energy to argue with her like he did back in Smallville, and they'd ended up remembering just how well they used to work together, when the situation called for it. Perfect match.

Better when Superman made his debut and Lois was the one person to look him dead in his glasses-free eyes and say, "Well, at least this explains your sense of style. I mean, come on, spandex?"

She covered for him when he did his superhero thing and she bullshitted so well that no one ever questioned her like they did him. He saved her when her reporter's nose led her too far into trouble. She was the mastermind with the nose of a bloodhound and the instincts of a psychic, and he wasn't always above using his powers to gather information based on her hunches. Between them there was comfort and familiarity, a million shared jokes and near-death experiences that made things easy. They worked together well.

They played together even better.

No one knew for sure that they were lovers, because superpowers made them very good at not getting caught. (The real fun was in trying to hide the fact that they lived together, just because they could, and actually succeeding.) But rumors abounded, and they definitely weren't wrong. Clark and Lois had fallen into bed the day she'd figured out his secret, and sometimes it felt like they hadn't fallen out since.

They weren't always alone. They liked to play, even if it was always for one-night-only, and experience made them a very good tag-team in bed. Clark was bi, though he'd never gotten the nerve to mention this to the person who made him aware of this fact before Lex had taken off for Tokyo, but Lois wasn't, so their third was always a man. Not that Clark minded. Quite the contrary.

The politically correct term was "open relationship." Clark just called it having fun. And it wasn't like they were doing anything wrong.

They were partners, after all. They did everything together.

* * *

Lex moved back to Metropolis for good, and it made the front page papers of all the newspapers, including the Daily Planet. Clark discovered something that he couldn't talk about with Lois, but she didn't need him to. He didn't tell her that he'd always been in love with Lex, but he didn't have to because she'd always known. 

Neither of them ever put voice to it, but they loved each other. They weren't in love with each other, because who needed romance when you had the kind of partnership that they did? But Clark had always hopelessly longed after Lex, and Lois, well, she wasn't in the habit of letting Clark want something when she could give it to him.

"No," he told her when she brought it up, but she just sighed impatiently and wondered how long it would take for them to move past the pointless denial.

"Come on, Kent, don't even bother. You want him, it'll hardly be a chore for me if some of the rumors I've heard are true, and it's not like we've never done this before."

"Not like this," Clark insisted, his face oh-so-innocent. Lois was never sure how he managed it after all they'd done, but she was still after him to teach her. He always laughed and said it was natural talent- you either had it or you didn't.

"I beg to differ," she said, eyebrow raised. "I'm pretty sure we've done just about all at one point or another."

"Never with someone who mattered," Clark said, his head hanging puppy-dog low. "Lex does."

"How is that a problem?" Lois said, baffled. "Seems to me it'd just make it better."

"We do one-night fun," Clark said, refusing to look at her. "I don't think I can do just one-night with Lex."

Oh, that's what he was all worked up about. Some typically Clark-like problem. Figured. "I wasn't planning on it being one night," she said patiently. Well, sort of patiently. "Like Lex would ever let you go. I refuse to move into that penthouse, though- our place is much closer to the Planet."

Clark stared at her for a moment, then laughed and let of his silly worries and they started to plot.

* * *

Lex wasn't sure what sort of mutant Lois was, but she clearly had some sort of power, since she'd managed to get him to agree to an interview, with her and her partner, in his penthouse after dinner. Before she'd ambushed him with her hypnotism or whatever, he'd had every intention of staying clear of Clark Kent. He'd figured it would be harder with them in the same city instead of Lex carefully on the other side of the globe (psychological distance only when the other person could fly) but he hadn't realized that it would be this difficult. 

They arrived around eight, Lois dressed in a slinky black dress and Clark darkly handsome in a black suit with a dark red shirt. Clearly, Lois had had a hand in revamping his wardrobe, because Lex doubted that Clark had changed enough in the past few years that he could dress himself like this.

"Thanks for agreeing to see us," Lois said cheerfully, and proceeded to grill him while Clark sat smilingly in the background, looking gorgeous as ever, supposedly taking notes. Lex doubted it, because even Clark must have trouble writing legibly when he wasn't even looking at the pad, staring as intently at Lex as he was.

Lex was so distracted by Clark's presence that he failed to notice that Lois had maneuvered closer to him during the interview (interrogations was more like it) till she was practically in his lap. When he did notice, he looked down at her with what must be a very clear expression of dismay because she laughed when she saw his face.

He looked frantically from her to Clark, who looked like he was trying to hold in laughter, and said cautiously, "I'd been given to understand that the two of you are together."

"Oh, we are," Lois said, setting her recorder aside and starting to unbutton his shirt.

"We're partners," Clark added, appearing on Lex's other side, one hand resting with casual possessiveness on the nape of Lois' neck and the other a heavy weight on his shoulder.

"We do everything together," Lois continued, finishing with his shirt. Dazed, he sat forward when she pulled and allowed Clark to pull it off.

"Including other men," Lex said, his legendarily quick brain not moving anywhere near the light speed at which these two moved. Lois grinned at him as she situated herself rather comfortably in his lap.

"Well, sure," she said. "We like to play."

"We're not playing with you, though," Clark said, and pulled him around that he was situated between Clark's splayed thighs before he realized it. When had Clark taken off his shoes? "We intend to be having fun with you for a very long time."

"How long?" Lex choked out, as Lois tongue played connect-the-dots with the freckles on his chest and Clark's cock rubbed against a very sensitive spot on the base of his spine.

"Forever," Lois said, and moved downwards.

"Forever," Clark echoed her, and did very good things with his fingers on Lex's nipples and his mouth on Lex's throat.

Lex's eyes rolled back into his skull, and his last thought was that sounded good to him.

* * *

Lounging in the afterglow in Lex's bed- Clark had levitated them there from the couch- Lois said sleepily, "I refuse to move." 

"Me too," Clark said, and Lex made a sulky noise of protest before falling asleep.


	2. Business Ethics

**Business Ethics.

* * *

**

"No."

"Oh, come on, Kent. Think of the headlines. No one's gotten an exclusive with him for _years,_ and we have it right here in our mitts. You want me to just pass it up?"

"It's called ethics, Lois. You might remember them from the deep, dark past. You know we only got that interview to seduce him, and since we succeeded it wouldn't be right to write that article."

"Why not?"

"Because it's a conflict of interest to write about someone we're sleeping with!"

She actually paused to consider this. For about two seconds. "Well, it's never stopped us before…"

"It hasn't stopped _you_ before, Lois, and that was one time, and only because I didn't catch you first and you know it." It was Clark's turn to pause consideringly. "Actually, that guy kinda had it coming, didn't he?"

"His only redeeming value was the size of his-" She stopped and looked prettily over Clark's shoulder at someone behind him. "Hey, Lex."

"Oh, do continue," Lex said, his voice an amused rumble. Clark felt it all the way to his bones. "I want to hear the rest of this story."

"Investment portfolio," she finished, way too smugly. Clark thought briefly of immolating her with a single well-placed heat vision beam, then realized how much sex and snark he'd be missing out on, and decided against it.

"I have a feeling that that's not exactly what you meant," Lex said, his voice dark with something between amusement and anger. "You bring men home together often?"

"Every now and then," Lois said candidly, blithely unaware of the minefield she was stepping into. Clark tried to send her a warning with his eyes- _danger, Will Robinson!_- but she was, as usual, oblivious.

"And I'm just the next in the long line of conquests, is that it?" Lex demanded, anger winning out. "A fun side benefit to your article while you're at it?" Lex shook his head in disgust and left the room. Lois and Clark both stared after him, Lois shocked and Clark resigned. She just… didn't know Lex. At all. Not like he did.

It would take some careful handling to fix this. But first…

"I told you that we shouldn't write that article."

* * *

After she and Clark had argued a little bit more and she'd had her head set on straight by the most scathing lecture she'd ever heard come out of Clark's lips, she sent him out to patrol or save kittens or something and went looking for Lex. 

She found him, not surprisingly, in his office, staring at the computer screen. He looked tired, tired and unhappy, and she winced as she realized that she was the one who'd caused it.

"Hey," she said softly, and winced again as he whipped around, startled. "Sorry, didn't mean to scare you or anything."

His face closed down when he saw who was standing there. "I was… lost in thought," he said, and turned back to his computer, blatantly dismissing her. "Was there something you wanted?"

"Yeah, to apologize," she said. Lex didn't know her, and so he didn't know how hard that was for her to say, but she was making a hell of a concession, here. If Clark hadn't explained things to her in very great detail, she wouldn't have bothered- would have just assumed he was sulking and left him to it.

"I didn't know that you apologized to anyone," Lex said, still not looking at her.

"I didn't know that Clark had talked about me," she said carefully. "In fact, I didn't know that you were talking to Clark at all."

He did turn around at that, very slowly. "I wasn't," he said. "Last night was the first time I'd seen him in years. I heard about you from other businessmen around Metropolis. You're known as quite the bulldog."

Lois didn't even notice the slurs to her character, so focused on a new discovery that she didn't even remember that she'd come in here to apologize.

"You know, when Clark first told me about you, it was only to say that LexCorp had gone global, so you no longer had any time for him. I always knew he was in love with you, but we never talked about it."

She watched with interest as his hands slowly clenched into fists, the knuckles going white with strain. Clearly this was a sensitive subject with him. Good.

"When you moved back, he got all depressed again. So I checked up on you. You know what I found?" Lex said nothing. "You'd gone global two years before. There was no business reason for you to be suddenly missing from Metropolis. You're lucky that Clark doesn't have the skills that I do, or you would've been screwed."

Lex's face was still closed tight, but she read the signs of strain easy enough. "I have this theory, you know. About why you left like that. You wanna hear it?"

"I'd be thrilled," he said, his voice drier than the Sahara.

"I think that you're in love with him," she said calmly. He didn't react, not visibly, but she could feel his tiny internal flinch nonetheless. "You're in love with him, always have been, and you were so torn up by being just his friend that you finally just up and left. Except guess what: he felt the same way. Oops. Bet it burns knowing that you could have had him all this time, doesn't it?"

"More than you know," Lex said, all pretense of calm now gone. "Are you happy now, having made me _completely_ miserable, or is there more?"

She ducked her head, actually fucking _blushing._ Jesus, this was all Clark's fault. "I really did come in here to apologize," she said. "What I was _trying_ to say is that we're not playing. Not with you. Or did you not hear me? Clark's in _love_ with you. Would you be content with just one night with him?" Lex didn't say anything. "I didn't think so. He wants to be with you, and he wants to be with me. So here we are."

Lex sighed and slumped in his chair. "I don't even know you," he pointed out. "It's fucking insane."

Lois shrugged. "So what? It's Clark. If you can deal with him being Superman, you can deal with me."

"You-"

"Of course I know about Superman," Lois said, her voice almost gentle. "We're partners. Or did you mean the fact that you knew? Yeah, it wasn't hard to guess that Clark told you. We keep coming back to this love thing- he loves you, he tells you the truth. That's just Clark."

"When did he tell you?" Lex wanted to know. She gave him a little half-smile.

"He didn't," she said. "Didn't have to. I saw Superman and I just knew. He's not hard to recognize, if you spend enough time watching Clark."

"No one else has ever figured it out like that," Lex said. "You must have spent a lot of time watching him."

"More than I realized," she said. "I figured it out later that night, when I got drunk and kissed him. Funny how much love looks like something everyday until you're looking back at it."

"I know the feeling," he whispered. She smiled at him, and for the very first time, he smiled back.

* * *

"Hey, you two," Clark said a couple hours later as he wandered into through the living room. "How's it going?" He already had jeans on and was buttoning up a shirt over the S on his chest. Through the doorway, Lois could see the red cape thrown carelessly over the arm of the couch and the boots parked next to the balcony door. All the comforts of home, only this was Lex's apartment. 

Lois was okay with that.

"Good," Lex answered for the both of them, distracted by the chess board on the kitchen table in front of him. "I'm teaching Lois how to play chess."

Clark groaned as he threw himself down into the empty chair. "Jesus, Lex. She'll be unmanageable now."

"I resent that," Lois said, studying the move that Lex had just made. The hell? What was the bastard _thinking?_

"I thought that if I taught her properly, the two of us together might be able to beat you," Lex said. She was too busy staring at the board to look at him, but she could hear the smile in his voice. Wait, what?

"Clark knows how to play chess?" she demanded, glaring up at them. "Since when? And how's he so good at it?"

"He learned the same way you are- I taught him."

"And I'm good because I have a memory for patterns," Clark said. "Besides, I'm not that good. Lex exaggerates."

"Lex is not exaggerating," Lex argued. He turned to Lois. "He remembers every single move he's ever seen. And I showed him all of my best stuff before I caught on, too."

"Kent, you bad boy!" she said. "Running a con on Lex." She grinned at him. "I'm so proud of you. I always told you that innocent smile would take you far."

"No, I can't teach you," he said, anticipating her next words. "Don't even bother. You couldn't pull it off even if you did know the trick of it."

"How come you can do it and I can't?" she demanded.

"Um, because I'm an alien?" He tried a cheesy grin on for size, which just made her and Lex bust a gut laughing.

Lois made her move, only to stare, aghast, as Lex checkmated her. "Bastard!" she said, but Lex just grinned at her.

"Clark," she said, not letting her gaze break away from Lex's, "Are you sure we can't publish that article?"


	3. Triplicate

**Triplicate.**

* * *

The alarm went off in a flurry of obnoxious beeps. Lois peeled open one eye, glared at it, and then decided it was too far away to turn off and just tuned it out. 

Clark solved the problem for her by reaching out one long arm and smacking the snooze button. It was only a temporary reprieve, though. She knew, somewhere deep in the part of her brain that was actually awake, that in just ten minutes it would go off again. And again. And again, until she finally got up.

"Who set it, anyway?" she grumbled under her breath, shoving her cold nose into the crook of Clark's neck and ignoring his instinctive flinch away. It was his fault that the covers had gotten pulled down, anyway.

"You did," Clark said sleepily. "Doctor's appointment, remember?"

Oh, that. "Shit," she said. "Does that mean that I have to get up?"

"Yeah," Clark said. "But it's not that bad."

"It's early morning on our day off, Kent. How is it not that bad?"

"Lex made coffee," Clark said.

"Oh, well, why didn't you say so?" That was lure enough to get her sitting upright. The motion caused the covers to get even further disarranged, and Clark made a protesting noise before pulling them back over him.

She glanced over to his other side, just then making the connection between "Lex" and "coffee" and "awake." Lex wasn't in his usual spot on the other end of the bed, wrapped around Clark like… well, she didn't have a metaphor as it was too early in the morning, but suffice to say that Lex clung like a clinging thing when he was asleep.

He always slept on one side of Clark while she slept on the other. They didn't talk about it, but they both knew that Clark was their point of connection. Which wasn't to say that they weren't attracted, or that they didn't like each other, but they didn't love each other the way they both loved Clark. Sometimes, Lois still thought of herself as part of a couple, and had to remind herself that Lex was part of their lives now. It wasn't a decision that she regretted, ever, but every now and then she had a hard time adjusting to the fact that Clark didn't belong to just her anymore.

"Why is Lex up?" she asked, running one hand through her hair. Shit, it was really tangled. Was gonna take forever to get the knots out enough to shower.

"Unlike us, he actually has to work today," Clark said into the pillow. "From home, though. Go bother him and let me go back to sleep."

Well, fine, if he was gonna be that way. Lois dragged herself out of bed and wrapped herself in the silk robe that Lex had conveniently left lying there (the man was an angel) and made her stumbling way towards the kitchen, which is where the divine coffee scent was wafting from.

She found her favorite mug (It was bright yellow with "Ace Reporter!" written on it in black letters with an overly cheerful smiley face next to it. Clark, the enterprising boy, had painted a pair of fangs on the smile.) and filled it with coffee. Coffee, oh coffee, that fabulous beverage, the drink of the gods. With every slow sip, Lois could feel energy flowing back into her veins. Thank god for caffeine.

She wandered out of the kitchen and into the den, where Lex was cursing at his laptop and a haphazard stack of papers at his elbow. Lois would be worried, but it hadn't taken long for her to realize that this was just Lex's business mode. If he wasn't irritated at something or other, then things were clearly not going well.

"Thanks for the coffee," she said, and he looked up at her with a small smile. Not the blinding smile he always had for Clark, but warm and sincere nonetheless.

"It was nothing. I how much you hate waking up early."

Once, Lois reflected, that comment would have been shaded by smugness and condescension- just another piece of information that could be used to control someone. Now it was said with affection, nothing more.

"Doctor's appointment," she said, and Lex winced.

"Needles," he explained when she gave him an odd look. "If you'd been through as many blood tests as I have, you'd hate them too."

Lex Luthor never offered up personal information for nothing. Except he did, now, to her. Other changes could be chalked up to Clark's all-pervasive influence (she could testify to its power personally), but this was different.

She let none of her thoughts show on her face, just took another slow sip of coffee and headed for the shower, letting her fingers brush his shoulder as she walked past.

* * *

The doctor's office was mostly empty, for which Lois thanked God. She didn't think that she could deal with human stupidity at the moment. 

She was wondering about the comfort she'd felt waking up in Lex's apartment that morning. She and Clark had been sleeping over there more and more frequently, but until now she had always woken up with that vague, disorienting sense of, _Where am I? Oh, Lex's penthouse._

Only this morning she'd woken up and thought, _someone turn off that fucking alarm, I'm staying home today._ Home. And she'd been in Lex's apartment, hadn't even thought about the fact until she was driving towards the doctor's office.

She'd thought that it was weird that Lex wasn't in his usual place in bed. Since when did they have a usual place in bed? For that matter, since when had her favorite coffee mug migrated from their apartment to the penthouse? And since when had she stopped whining about the longer drive to get to the _Planet?_

She honestly didn't know when it had happened. It had only been four months since that first night with Lex, so how had this… domesticity happened so fast? It had taken her longer with Clark to move in with Clark, and they'd clicked from the very first kiss.

"Ms. Lane?" someone said, and she looked up to see the nurse standing in the open doorway.

"Yes?"

"The doctor will see you now."

She followed the woman back into the doctor's office and spent the next hour being poked and prodded for her yearly checkup, thinking hard all the while. She and Clark hadn't moved in with Lex, though. Sure, they had clothes there, and slept over a lot, but they still kept their own apartment. And they slept there plenty of times.

Well, okay, not so much. In fact, it hadn't been for almost two weeks, since that last big story on a drug cartel, where they'd been working around the clock and had only crashed for a couple of hours a night. After it hit the printers, she and Clark had gone back to Lex's place, and they'd all gotten very very drunk and had had lots of sex before collapsing in his overlarge bed for almost two days. Well, she'd slept for two days. Clark, the bastard, had been up and about the moment the sun came up the next morning. Stupid solar-powered aliens.

"Ms. Lane?" the nurse said, catching her attention again. "If you'll follow me, you can be out of her in just a few minutes."

"Sure," Lois said, and followed her back to the front desk.

So the two of them were practically moved in anyway. So what? That didn't mean anything.

"Ms. Lane, do you need these papers in duplicate?"

"No," she said absently, digging in her purse for her checkbook, "I need them in triplicate."


	4. Bad Day

**Bad Day.**

I'm going to be perfectly honest, and say that the only reason I was spurred into writing the next chapter of this is because someone told me, rather vehemently, that they didn't like it. Yes, I am overly stubborn and contrary. But hey, at least I wrote. But I know that plenty of people are reading it, so... **  
**

* * *

Clark knew that his day was doomed when he realized that he'd slept through the alarm. 

If asked, he probably couldn't have told you how he knew this. Plenty of people sleep through their alarms and go on to have perfectly good days. But somehow Clark knew that this day was different, that this day was special in a really, truly, horrible sort of way.

He was right.

Because he slept through the alarm, he got up late. Because he got up late, he had to skip breakfast, since he was supposed to have been at work half an hour ago, and that put him in a really foul mood.

Unlike Lois, he didn't have to take the mass transit system or even one of Lex's really spiffy cars to get to work, so the fact that the distance between Lex's penthouse and the Daily Planet was longer than the distance between their apartment and the Daily Planet didn't bother him in the least. In fact, it was usually better for him, since there was a far greater chance of stumbling over a crime victim if he was coming from their apartment, and that delayed him far more effectively than a few extra miles possibly could. Usually, Clark could speed to work from the penthouse without any worry at all about possibly detours to save people.

Of course, today of all days would be the exception. Clark had barely made it out of the elevator before he heard the cries for help. Not Superman's help, just help, anyone, please help me, over and over and Clark was already on his way down the alley, several blocks over, because when had he ever been able to ignore a cry for help?

It turned out to be a well-dressed woman (like there was any other kind, in this district) being attacked by an equally well-dressed man. He was mugging her, and he wasn't raping her or threatening her with a knife, so her life probably wasn't in certain danger. But he'd slammed her against the wall and was holding here there and Clark could see a bruise forming across her cheekbone already, and the sight filled him with the same rage that it always did, when he saw someone hurting someone weaker than them. It used to be a helpless rage, because what could a simple farm boy do about things like that? But Clark wasn't helpless. Not anymore.

He was in the alley before an eyeblink of time had passed, about to lift the guy off the woman before he realized that he wasn't in his Superman uniform. At the moment he was plain Clark Kent, and Clark Kent couldn't pick grown men up by the scruffs of their necks. So he made a split-second change of trajectory and landed his closing fist on the man's jaw instead, carefully regulating his strength so that the man was stunned but not unconscious or dead from a broken neck.

He turned to the woman and said, "Are you okay?" and then realized that he knew her. She lived in the building next to the penthouse, and sometimes they would be leaving for work at the same time in the morning and they would nod at each other and maybe smile distractedly before going on about their separate days. He didn't know her name or anything about her, really, other than that she was obviously rich and that she had a pretty smile.

"Oh thank God you were here," she said, taking a hitching breath. "He would have- Well, I don't know what he would have done, but it would have been bad." She leaned gratefully against the arm he offered her.

"Who is he?" Clark asked. He wasn't usually here for this part, the cleanup of the crimes he stopped. Usually it was save and run, and someone else fixed things. He wasn't sure of the etiquette.

"My ex-boyfriend," she said. "I ended things because he was too controlling, and, well, he didn't like that very much. He was waiting for me when I walked past the alley, grabbed me and dragged me back here. To talk, he said." She shuddered.

Clark tried to look understanding. He was sure that he managed sympathetic, at least (how could he really understand, anyway? No one was ever going to be strong enough to abuse him like that) because she smiled at him.

"Thank you," she said softly. "I don't know how far he would have gone if you hadn't stopped him."

The object of their discussion suddenly stirred and groaned, and Clark stared down at him in distaste. "Do you want me to call the police for you?"

She nodded, but looked a little regretful. "I want him to rot in jail," she said. "But it's really too bad. I have to get to work or my boss will kill me."

And then Clark remembered. Work. He was already late for work. He could leave right now, call the cops and go and she'd be fine, the guy wasn't going to hurt her again so she didn't really need him to stay here with her…

One look at her face and he realized that there was no way he was going to be able to leave her to face this alone. "I'll stay, if you want," he offered, and her smile was so grateful that he knew he was going to be stuck here the whole time- which meant police reports and questions and far, far too much time.

He was doomed.

* * *

Lois shot him an irritated glance when he stalked over to their desk, almost an hour later. "Where the hell were you, Smallville?" she demanded. "We have to get this done by three or it won't hit the printers in time. Did you sleep in or something?" 

"Bite me," he invited, and settled down in his chair with a thunk. "It'll be done. Just let me work."

"Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning," Lois muttered, and Clark glared at her.

"Someone's alarm didn't go off, because someone's girlfriend turned it off when she got up way too early and someone's boyfriend didn't turn it back on. And then someone had to save a girl from her psychotic ex-boyfriend and had to deal with police reports. And someone hasn't had breakfast and is in a really bad mood. So if you could just leave that certain someone alone, Lois, and let me finish the damn article, all will be golden in this person's life. Understood?"

She'd listened to his recitation with wide eyes. "Sorry, Clark," she muttered, and he knew she was actually sorry because she was using his given name, which never happened. Not when they were at work. Which reminded him that hello, they were at work, where as far as anyone knew they were both just dateless losers who happened to be good friends and certainly didn't know the billionaire Lex Luthor, so what the hell was he doing talking about girlfriends and boyfriends where anyone could hear him? A quick look around assured him that no one actually had heard, but still. It was stupid. Careless. He and Lois had been playing this game of secret-keeping for years now, just for the hell of it, and it was unforgivably careless that when they actually had someone's reputation to protect (Lex's, not theirs) he would just blurt something out like that.

Scowling to himself and hating the world, he turned back to his monitor and reached for Lois' coffee mug. He took one absent-minded sip, then made a horrible face and set it back down. Cold.

His day just kept getting better and better.

* * *

He did finish the story, and sent it off to the printers with about thirty seconds to spare. Speed-typing did come in handy once in a while, and Lois had a lot of practice covering the fact that his hands were, in fact, moving faster than the eye could see. Having their desks in a dark corner helped. 

He'd no sooner hit "send" then Lois was leaning over his shoulder, telling him about some corrupt government official who was taking payments from the CEO of petro-chemical corporation to look the other way while they dumped hazardous waste into the water-supply systems in the suburbs outside of Metropolis. She wanted to go spy on him, (she called it "surveillance") and would probably skewer his weaselly little heart with her pen, but this surveillance was going to take place on the alley in Suicide Slums where he picked up his payments from the CEO. Not the best neighborhood for any woman to be walking around alone, especially one who dressed as neatly as Lois did- she might as well have a bull's-eye painted on her back. So she needed backup, and a super-strong, invincible alien who just happened to be her partner suited Lois' needs perfectly.

Clark was actually opening his mouth to agree when his pager went off. Not just any pager, but _that_ pager, the one that was actually a direct line to the Fortress, who monitored the globe for natural disasters and other such Superman-needing occasions. The pager going off meant that he was needed somewhere, in uniform, _right that instant,_ no delays possible.

He sent Lois a despairing glance, and she just sighed and shook her head. She knew what the pager meant. "Get out of here," she said. "I'll cover with Perry."

Sometimes, every now and then, he was tempted to kiss her. Just kiss her, and to hell with what anyone thought. This was one of those times. "Thanks, Lois," he said, giving her hand a grateful squeeze instead. "I'll try and make it back before your spy mission if I can." He fixed her with his fiercest Superman glare. "But if I can't, then you won't go down there. Alright? You know damn well that it's too dangerous for you alone."

"Yeah, yeah, alright," she said, waving her hand. "Just go, would you? Some of us have work to do."

Clark mastered the impulse to stick his tongue out at her and went.

* * *

It was bad. It was the worst he'd seen in- a long time. Not never, he'd seen worse than this during his time as Superman, but it had been several months. Definitely before they'd taken up with Lex, possibly months before that. 

A dam had broken, somewhere in Africa. Clark didn't even know what country he was in, much less what dam had just burst. All he knew was that the Fortress hadn't found out about it till after it had started to flood the little valley that was filled with little, fragile huts that held even more fragile human lives. Clark had made it there as fast he could, probably even scorched some ozone on his way, but he hadn't made it there in time to save the village. All he could do was try and clean up the mess.

He'd probably saved hundreds of lives. But it had been a big village, and he'd lost hundreds more. He knew that he couldn't do everything, that he was faster and stronger than any other living thing on the planet but he still wasn't perfect, but it didn't make it any easier when he couldn't save everyone.

So he slowly flew home, soaking wet and miserable, and did his usual fast change in the phone booth outside of the Daily Planet before going back in to work. It felt like the entire expedition had taken hours, but in fact it was still only four or five o'clock. The end of the workday for most other businesses, but this was journalism, and almost everyone was still at their desks.

Clark stopped when he got to his own desk, however, because it, unlike the others, was empty. Lois' computer screen was dark and still, and the usual clutter was neatened away, like she did every day before she left for home. Except they didn't usually head home till almost seven, which meant…

He swore, and ran for the exit. He could only hope that she hadn't gotten herself in any trouble before he got there, but in the back of his brain, the part that wasn't so subsumed with panic that it was actually able to remember all the things he knew about Lois, wasn't counting on it.

* * *

She was already in trouble when he got there. Big surprise. Apparently, the guy delivering the cash had spotted her spying, and when Superman arrived on the scene, the thug was holding a gun to her head. 

A quick blow dispatched the thug into unconsciousness, a glare reduced the weasel into a gibbering pile of terror, and one arm was more than enough to pick up Lois and get the hell out of the alley. He waited till they were up in the air, high enough not to be seen from the ground but not so high that she couldn't breathe or she froze to death, before he started yelling at her.

"What the hell were you thinking?" he demanded. "I told you to wait for me, or if I couldn't make it back, then to just not go. Do you ever listen to me at all, or am I just constantly wasting my breath on you? You could have been fucking killed! Would have been, if I hadn't gotten back in time. Do you never fucking _learn!_"

She actually looked contrite, which was a rarity in and of itself. The apology that followed was almost unheard of. "Clark, I'm sorry. I do listen to you, and I know I almost got killed and I'm _sorry,_ but I got the bastard on tape! I got enough to fry him and maybe even enough to implicate the CEO. It's just what I was hoping for!"

Clark discovered that he was just too tired to yell at Lois anymore. It wouldn't change anything, anyway- she was always going to be rushing headlong into danger, and he was always going to be rushing after her, trying to save her neck. It had been like this since the beginning, and normally it didn't bother him as much because, well, that was just the way it was with Lois. He knew that it was only his miserable mood and the really bad he'd had that was causing him to get upset about it now, so he just sighed and said resignedly, "Alright, Lois. You want me to take you back to the Planet?"

"No, take me home," she said. He nodded and started drifting towards the north, away from Suicide Slums and the other less-pleasant districts of town.

"When are we going to talk about it?" she said suddenly, and he tilted his head down so he could see her face.

"Talk about what?" he asked.

"About the fact that when I said take me home, you headed straight for Lex's."

He closed his eyes. Fuck. "Sorry," he said, his voice strained. He craned his head to see if she looked pissed. "You want me to go to our place?"

"No," she said. "The penthouse is fine. But we still need to talk about it."

He closed his eyes again (didn't need to see to make it to Lex's, because he knew the way by heart) and rested his cheek against the top of her head. He'd saved her so many times that carrying her like this, cradled against his chest, felt natural. So far he hadn't had to save Lex since he'd become Superman, and he didn't want to think about it. He knew it would happen. Lois found trouble all on her own, but Lex- well, Lex just sort of called trouble to him. Like a magnet. Or a particularly demented Pied Piper.

He wasn't flying all-out, was in fact just drifting slowly across the sky, so they hadn't covered more than half the distance between the alley and Lex's penthouse. "You know how I feel about it," he said.

"Tell me anyway."

And that was just like Lois, demanding an answer she already had. Oh, well. "I think it's pointless keeping our apartment since we almost never see the inside of it," he said. "Most of our clothes are already at the penthouse, anyway. We've moved in already, we just haven't made it official. And until Lex says something, then things are going to stay the way they are, because it's his home and I'm not going to rearrange his life more than we already have."

"That's not why you won't say anything to him about it," Lois said shrewdly. He sighed.

"You've got me all figured out already, why don't you explain it?"

"You won't ask him because you think it's his turn," she said. "We practically forced him into this relationship- you and I both know it- and you're gonna sit back and wait till _he_ makes a decision about _us._ Am I on track?"

"Closer than I like," he admitted. "As always."

"You know that he isn't asking because he thinks that we don't want to move in, right?" she asked. He glared at her.

"Actually, I know that he won't ask because he _knows_ that _you_ don't want to move in," he corrected. "Mine is not the only opinion he cares about, Lois. You mean a lot to him. Don't act like you don't know that."

She ducked her chin, hiding her eyes from him with uncharacteristic shyness. "I know," she murmured, and neither said anything till they got to the penthouse.

* * *

Lex was waiting for them when Clark landed on the balcony, an angry scowl on his face and a glass of scotch in one hand. Clark knew from experience that this was a bad combination, and he managed to excuse himself before Lex could pin him down and rushed to the bathroom to strip out of his wet uniform and take a hot shower. Even he got chilled when wearing wet clothes at high altitudes. 

A few minutes later he pulled on a pair of jeans and went back into the living room, where Lois was sitting on the couch with a mulish expression on her face, and Lex's lecture was still going. Clark didn't catch much of it and had deliberately tuned out his hearing in the shower, since this lecture had been given more than once already. Lois was too reckless; one of these days she'd get herself killed; what was she thinking? The content never changed, just Lex's level of frustration, which went up steadily every time Lois pulled another stupid stunt. He didn't understand yet that yelling at her made no difference- or maybe he did, and he just ranted to make himself feel better.

Lex stopped lecturing when Clark slipped onto the couch next to Lois, but his glare, if anything, increased. "Don't think I didn't see the damn news coverage about you and that dam," Lex snapped.

Clark gave him his mildest expression in return. "Well, it wasn't like I was going to leave them there to die," he said.

"I know," Lex sighed. "That doesn't make it easier to watch on television, though."

Clark winced. "Sorry," he said, though he wasn't sure what he was apologizing for. Like he said, it wasn't like he could have done anything different. But he was sorry that Lex had been worried.

A lot of his misery over not being able to save everyone had melted away knowing it, though. Lex was worried about him, had obviously not even thought about Clark's self-perceived failure, which meant that it was all in Clark's head anyway. Lex always had all the facts, and if Lex thought that he hadn't done enough, he would find a way to let Clark know.

Lex finally gave up pacing and just sat down in the chair across from them, slumping into it like a puppet whose strings had been cut. He buried his face in his hands, a more obvious sign of real upset than several minutes of straight lecturing had been, and Clark and Lois exchanged worried glances.

"This is insane," Lex told his palms. "I never asked for this. It just happened."

Clark and Lois turned their worried gazes directly to Lex, this time. He lifted his head up and looked them both straight in the eye.

"I want you to move in with me," he said. "You're practically living here as it is, but I want you to really move in. It's stupid for you to keep your apartment when you're never there. And I want to make this official." He looked nervous but defiant, and he was looking straight at Lois.

Clark smiled to himself. He'd known from the start that Lois was only going along with it because she wanted Clark to be happy, and that Lex was only there because it was his only chance to have Clark. But over the months the two of them had connected more and more without him there, and he'd hoped… Well, they were alike in so many ways. Both were stubborn, sarcastic, ambitious, sharp-edged, quick-witted, brilliant, complex people. Except for him, both had always dated people very much like each other. He'd always secretly thought that if the two of them had met without him in the middle that they would have either killed each other or fallen in love. When Lois had come up with her crack-brained plan, he never would have gone along with it if he hadn't thought that they'd get along to option two eventually.

And now, it seemed, they were at the crunch point. Not of declaring love, no, not with those two. But Lex's question was aimed at Lois, who'd always been the one with protests against moving in, and his question was as good as a declaration. To Clark's ears, anyway. He had no idea if Lois understood all the ramifications behind his question and her answer. Nor did he know what her answer would actually be- she hadn't given him a clue during their earlier airborne conversation. If she said no, then as far as Clark was concerned, this whole three-way relationship was doomed.

Which would be fairly disastrous to Clark's life, because he didn't know who he would choose to be with. Lois was his partner, his compliment in every way, and they'd been together for years… But Lex, well, Lex was the first person he'd ever fallen for, and the only person he'd never, ever been able to get out of his head. He never worried about Lois half so much as he did Lex, even though she got in more trouble, because he knew that Lex could twist himself up in knots over the most simple emotional problems.

He loved both of them equally. And he wanted this to work out.

The silence had stretched between them almost too long, and Lex's face was starting to shut down, the same way it always had when his father had insulted him or Clark had lied to him. When he was feeling rejected by someone he cared about. But then-

"Yes," Lois said, a small smile on her lips. "We'll move in."

Lex's eyes lit up first, and his face was slow to follow, like he couldn't actually believe she'd said yes. But Lois was still smiling, and Clark knew that he was grinning like a loon, and so Lex started to smile. It was the smile he'd never had for anyone but Clark, the, I'm-so-happy-I-can't-breathe smile, but he was smiling at both of them now, and Lois was smiling back.

Clark wrapped one arm around Lois' shoulders and pulled her tight against his body, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. "I'm so proud of you," he said, too low for her to hear, then turned his attention to Lex. He grabbed him and hauled him down on the couch next to him, half in his lap, and wrapped an arm around him too.

"I love you," he whispered to Lex, and Lex looked up at him, and his smile this time was the most beautiful Clark had ever seen. Clark couldn't resist the urge to kiss him and he didn't even try, and when he pulled back after a moment it was to see Lois waiting her turn.

Clark knew she'd heard his declaration to Lex. She wouldn't be offended that he'd said it to Lex and not to her. Lois knew he loved her, it wasn't something she'd ever questioned, and not hearing the words didn't make it any less true. Lex, though- Lex was the sort of person who needed to hear it for himself, because he couldn't ever believe that someone could love him. Especially not when he loved them back.

As for Lex and Lois, well… Clark leaned back, his arms still around both their waists, and watched with a grin as they kissed in front of him. It looked almost like they'd forgotten he was there and that… Well, to Clark, that meant everything.

They pulled apart a moment later, and almost in tandem they settled against him. Clark was always in the middle, always the one between them and holding them together, but tonight, for the first time, he wasn't the bridge between two separate relationships. He was just there, a part of _their_ relationship, and it was the fulfillment of all that Clark had ever let himself hope for.

He settled back with a contented sigh, his lovers in his arms. It looked like it was a good day, after all.


End file.
